Tag: Travis Baldree

Review – Brigands & Breadknives

Posted July 28, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Brigands & Breadknives

by Travis Baldree

Genres: Fantasy
Series: Legends & Lattes #3
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller's life for decades, but now, in the face of crippling ennui, transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend's coffee shop. What could be a better pairing? Surely a charming renovation montage will cure what ails her!

If only things were so simple...

It turns out that fixing your life isn't a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint.

A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior surviving on inertia, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover.

As together they fend off a rogue's gallery of ne'er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when there isn't a job to get in the way.

I hesitated about starting Travis Baldree’s Brigands & Breadknives for a while: the first book came at a perfect moment for me and was delightfully cosy, but the second book (the prequel) didn’t quite hit the same spot, so I wasn’t sure where this one would fall. Ultimately, I didn’t like it as much as I like Legends & Lattes, but I think the choice to avoid sticking too close to the template of the first one and go for a less cosy, more quest-like adventure brought with it a breath of fresh air.

Which is not to say that it abandoned one of the things I like a lot about Legends & Lattes: the book follows Viv as she tires of being a mercenary and turns to something else that’s calling her more, and that’s essentially what’s happening for Fern here as well. Baldree could’ve written essentially the same story again, with Fern settling into the bookshop next door to Viv and finding contentment in a change of pace and location, but instead he chose something truer to the spirit of the original: Fern’s lost, and her relationship to her work has changed, and so she ends up setting out to seek something new.

There are elements of the way things turned out that I’d predicted, but also some differences — which I won’t say too much about, to avoid spoilers! I liked that it somewhat ducked my expectations, but in a way that beautifully made sense of everything.

Overall, I didn’t love it as much as Legends & Lattes, but I did enjoy it a lot. The characters are fun (I love Zyll most of all), we get to see more of the world, and we do see glimpses of Viv, Tandri, et al.

One sour note: a character declares they don’t go by a particular name anymore, and everyone continues to use it. It doesn’t matter why someone wants to change their name, even if you think it’s silly. If the name is upsetting for them or doesn’t fit with who they are in any way, then the right thing to do is accept that change. I didn’t enjoy this element being continuously ignored and used for humour, at all. Names are important. It wasn’t funny.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Travis Baldree

Review – Bookshops & Bonedust

Posted June 18, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree

Received to review via Netgalley

This book had a lot to live up to, given my love for Legends & Lattes. It’s a prequel, following Viv when she was a young idiot, running with her first mercenary band and getting a massive injury. There’s a bit more action in this book, as a result, though the stakes are different because they’re not as deeply personal to Viv (though she does care very much).

It’s mostly a new cast, aside from Viv, though one particular character from Legends & Lattes gets a chance to shine. I didn’t latch onto them in quite the same way, except perhaps for one — about whom I shouldn’t say too much, except that I was deeply relieved they got what they wanted out of life. I wonder if I’d latch on more on reread, knowing what to expect.

Like Legends & Lattes, there are some very profoundly cosy aspects (such as discussion of books they all like! and how to sell more books!), and it’s very enjoyable to see the seeds of where Viv gets to later. I’d definitely recommend having read Legends & Lattes first, so that you can appreciate that, despite the fact that this is a prequel — plus, the epilogue of this book is spoilery for the original novel.

To call either this book or Legends & Lattes “low-stakes” is a bit misleading, I think. Life and limb are on the line in both, and loss of someone’s livelihood — not to mention a place full of memories of their family, for example — is not “low-stakes”, emotionally speaking. Sure, the world isn’t going to end, but there are things on the line here. I didn’t care quite as much as I did for Legends & Lattes, perhaps, but I did very much care about what was happening.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: book reviews, books, SF/F, Travis Baldree

Review – Legends & Lattes

Posted March 2, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree

Legends & Lattes is a rare book that I wanted to read again as soon as I was finished with it — it’s warm and cosy, a world with a lot of goodness in it and people who will make an effort and put in work, even when it’s hard. A world where even an orc can quit being a mercenary and make a coffee shop, and a rattkin can come on staff to make baked goods, and a succubus (who doesn’t use any of her charms) can come on board as a barista. It’s a world where a far-fetched dream can come true with a little magic, a little luck, and a lot of willing hands.

Honestly, I got to the end of it and was a little outraged that the bit I thought was left was an additional short story and not more of the same coffee-scented cosiness. I wanted more of Viv, more of the coffee shop, more of the little mysteries around it (the gnome who seemed to be some kind of time traveller, for example).

I think some people have dinged it rating-wise for not being original, which is a little bit confusing to me: it’s not meant to be some spectacular and strange fantasy world with intricate world-building. It’s more like “here’s a generic fantasy world, and here’s the kind of story we don’t tell set in this kind of world very often”. The world-building is far from the point — it’s more taking this basic fantasy world and saying, well, not everyone can be a mercenary all their life. What do they do after? What do they do if killing people isn’t what makes them happy?

So I wouldn’t go in expecting something super original, because it’s not about that. It’s a mug of hot coffee (or hot chocolate, if that’s more your thing, as it is for me) on a cold day; a friend’s shoulder leaning into yours while you’re just going about your day.